Amitav Ghosh, Wayanad Landslides, Climate Change: “Renewable Energy Mirage Often Creates Disasters”: Amitav Ghosh On Landslides

Much of the discourse around climate change tends to focus on technological “megafixes” and a renewable energy push may have, ironically, contributed to the landslides in Wayanad in which nearly 300 people have been killed, noted author and climate activist Amitav Ghosh has said.

In an exclusive interview with NDTV on Thursday, Mr Ghosh also said that there seems to be an inverse correlation between climate issues and people’s attention to them because while one has been worsening, the other has been decreasing. 

“With the landslides in Kerala, one of the real problems over there is that there is just too much construction. This whole region has been so badly affected and this is not the first year… it’s been going on for a very long time, going back to 2018. We see repeatedly the problems that arise from climate change affecting Uttarakhand, affecting Kerala, creating ever-greater impacts, and yet we don’t seem to adapt at all,” the author, many of whose books speak of the devastating effects of climate change, said. 

To a question on the measures taken by India to combat climate change and what he thought of the green hydrogen push, Mr Ghosh said, “I know the government has been talking up green hydrogen, but where do we see the results? Unfortunately, a lot of the discourse around climate change tends to focus on technological megafixes, which actually never deliver.”

“One of the great ironies of climate change is that often the renewable energy mirage creates disasters in itself. In Wayanad, one of the problems is that people began to construct windmills, which is a good thing, I suppose, but to get to them you need roads, and roads destabilise the hillsides, leading to landslides. One of the major problems is road-building; it is a major problem in Uttarakhand, in the northeast and it is a major problem in Kerala. Wayanad is a major tourist region and the roads become heavily frequented and that leads to problems in itself,” he said.

The climate activist emphasised that climate change impacts are also often exacerbated by a 
“mistaken” model of development in which there is building without proper oversight and without conducting studies of how the environment will be affected. 

“Forecasting methods give us a general picture of what might happen, they can’t forecast localised defects, for which you have to look at local knowledge. Several people in Wayanad had the foresight to leave those areas before the landslides struck. Another thing I would like to emphasise is that we have been following this very technology oriented idea of development, and that in itself has been a large part of the problem. This part of Wayanad (where the landslides occurred) for example, is famous for its plantations. It has tea plantations. It has cardamom plantations, rubber plantations,” Mr Ghosh said, adding that following an industrialised model of agriculture can create vulnerabilities and just having a green cover is not the same as forestation.

“What has happened in Wayanad was predicted years and years ago by Madhav Gadgil, the great environmentalist. In fact, the Gadgil report recommended that this entire region be treated as an ecologically sensitive area,” he added. 

‘Can’t Absolve Themselves’

On climate change across the world and the steps that can be taken to mitigate it, Mr Ghosh said the developed world is responsible, for the most part, for greenhouse emissions but they are not willing to bear the burden.

“If you look at what the developed world is spending on climate mitigation and what it’s spending on armaments right now, especially since the start of the Ukraine war, their defence spending is in multiples of hundreds more than their climate spending. Increasingly, there’s a huge sort of backlash against any kind of climate measures. We see this in Europe, we see this in America. The Global South should continue to press very strongly for action from the developed world on climate change,” he said. 

“But, at the same time, it’s incumbent on us. It’s incumbent on all the governments of the Global South to also act to mitigate climate change impacts locally and regionally. This is a very important thing that we have to consider, we can’t just blame climate change. This should not become a way for politicians and bureaucrats to absolve themselves of the responsibility for these impacts,” the author stressed. 

‘Not Much Has Changed’

Eight years ago, Mr Ghosh had written that cultural failure is at the heart of the climate change crisis. When he was asked if he could see any change since then, he rued, “I have to say, that’s not the case at all. I think that more and more as climate issues worsen, people pay less and less attention to climate change. Especially culturally, we have not adapted at all.”